Optimism runs low as Syria enters third year of revolt

Optimism runs low as Syria enters third year of revolt

Full Comment’s Araminta Wordsworth brings you a daily round-up of top-quality punditry from around the globe. Today: As an illustration of the adage, “Mighty oaks from little acorns grow,” it’s hard to beat Syria’s civil war.

Two years ago, as the Arab Spring swept the Middle East and North Africa, some teens in a town in southern Syria scrawled graffiti on a wall.

“No teaching, No School, Till the end of Bashar’s Rule,” wrote one. Added another, “Leave, Bashar.”

Well, Bashar al-Assad may still be in Damascus, but he’s holed up in his presidential palace, more like a rat in a trap than the all-powerful ruler of a prosperous modern nation.

The Syrian revolt has transformed the country into a battleground. Its economy is destroyed, at least 70,000 people have been killed and another million have fled abroad, including the graffiti writers.

Meanwhile, foreign powers have sat on their hands, most refusing to get involved except through discussions and diplomacy, the ultimate in hot air.

The Washington Post knows just who to blame for this: Barack Obama, the U.S. president, who has correctly gauged Americans’ lack of interest in such a costly expedition. Parroting the Pentagon’s line, the paper’s armchair generals don rose-tinted spectacle to argue intervention wouldn’t require very much.

The means to prevent this implosion are the same that could have stopped the ignition of the civil war: aggressive intervention by the United States and its allies to protect the opposition and civilians. This would not require ground troops, only more training and the supply of heavy weapons to the rebels, and airstrikes to eliminate the regime’s warplanes, missiles and, if necessary, chemical weapons. The recognition of an alternative government led by the civilian Syrian National Coalition would send the message to wavering regime supporters that it was time to defect and would help to isolate al-Qaeda before it is too late.

Writing for the Abu Dhabi-based The National, Alan Philips says the Syrian conflict should be seen a proxy for the struggle between Russia and the U.S.

Fiona Hill, author of a new biography, Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin, believes that the Russian leader’s plan has been to give Mr Assad all the time he needs to crush the opposition, just as Mr Putin was able to overcome the Chechen separatists … If it were just a matter of Russia’s interests in Syria, then maybe a deal could be worked out. But if Mr Putin’s goal is to show how tough he is after more than two decades of geopolitical retreat, and to teach the Americans a lesson about the dangers of allowing the status quo to be upset, then the issue is far more complicated.
The Americans and their allies could always invade Syria, as they did in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Mr Putin’s bluff would be called. But there is no sign of that happening. Indeed, Mr Obama, with the support of a war-weary public, is like Mr Putin — unmoved by Syrian bloodshed and suffering.

Jacob Campbell, a contributor to the newspaper The Algemeiner, wonders why the west has chosen the Muslim Brotherhood as its surrogate.

Yes, the West has been supplying the Syrian rebels with “non-lethal equipment,” including mobile telephones and water purifiers. But a Nokia never brought down a helicopter gunship. And to the limited extent that Western intelligence agencies have been involved in the channelling of weapons to Syria’s armed opposition, they have been doing so through – oy vey! – the Muslim Brotherhood. The schmucks …
[W]hat I cannot understand …is why the change of heart comes now, when we do know the devil we didn’t; the one born of our inaction. Just look at what that devil, the Muslim Brotherhood, is doing in Egypt at this very moment: transforming it further with every passing day into a second Iran. Is that the fate we wanted for Syria?
Assad must go, however, and that means arming the rebels. I still believe that. But our dithering has ensured that whatever regime replaces him is unlikely to be much of an improvement. And that’s what’s so depressing.

Just about the only optimism comes from inside Syria. Reporting from Damascus, the BBC’s Lina Sinjab files a surprisingly upbeat piece.

[A]mid the violence, there is a great sense of hope. Among civilians, there is an unprecedented sense of solidarity.
People are sharing homes, clothes and food — notably with the hundreds of thousands displaced by the fighting.
The sense of freedom is palpable, with opposition voices speaking out. More than new 30 online publications are promoting democracy, despite the crackdown.
In some opposition-controlled areas, civilians and rebels are establishing local councils to get the services working.
And as people start to look past the civil war, some are protesting against rebel groups that have committed abuses or which, like the Nusra Front, are seeking to Islamize society.
Syria has risen against tyranny and will never be the same again.